EAST HARTFORD -- Halftime speeches are one thing, but the UConn football team hasn't had much trouble this season coming out of the locker room. It's when the third quarter ends and the fourth begins that the Huskies have often hit the skids this season.

So even though this team had just taken an 18-point lead on visiting Louisville Saturday, Edsall spent the final break between quarters screaming at his players, imploring them to "finish the job." The coach's message apparently got through as UConn beat the Cardinals 38-25 before a sellout crowd of 40,000 at Rentschler Field.

"We've been in it two other times this year and we didn't get the job done," Edsall said. "I just have so much feeling for these kids, I wanted to let them understand and see the passion about going out and finishing it. I think if they see that out of me, then hopefully that carries over to their play."

UConn (4-2, 1-1) had trouble finishing off Pittsburgh and North Carolina with double-digit, fourth-quarter leads, but pulled away from the Cardinals this time. The Huskies were up 19 points before Louisville's Blayne Donnell scored what was essentially a meaningless touchdown as time expired.

Edsall's rant wasn't exactly a surprise to the veteran Huskies. They expected their coach to be fired up given the situation.

The UConn offense was led by a pair of seniors who weren't starters when the season began but are certain to be as it moves ahead. Dixon ran for 153 yards on 33 carries and scored three touchdowns, while wide receiver Marcus Easley caught six passes for 108 yards and the Stratford native's second career touchdown.

"One thing we really emphasized this week was making sure we finished," said Dixon, who passed the 100-yard mark for the seventh time in his career. "As you saw in the past, the fourth quarter, we kind of tanked up and had been giving up games. This week we emphasized working and really finishing the game with the same enthusiasm and the same effort that we started the game with."

Louisville (2-4, 0-2) amassed 457 yards against a rather supple UConn defense, but turned the ball over four times, including two fumbles and an interception on its first three possessions of the second half. The Cardinals have dropped seven straight Big East games.

Easley caught his second touchdown pass in as many games to put the Huskies up 21-13 in the third quarter. He then hauled in a 46-yard bomb from Cody Endres on UConn's next possession to set up a 30-yard field goal by Dave Teggart.

UConn then found itself in the exact same situation it was the week before against Pittsburgh: up 11 points with just under 20 minutes left in the game.

Instead of folding, however, the Huskies piled on.

Louisville Adam Froman had completed 16 straight passes but Robert McClain picked off Froman's second-down pass on the next drive, setting the Huskies up at the Cardinal 36. Dixon scored four plays later to make it 31-13 UConn.

"We didn't want to come back into the locker room saying 'what if?' Everybody would have had their heads down, being 0-2 in the Big East," cornerback Jasper Howard said. "So everybody really wanted that win."

Louisville running back Bilal Powell ran 29 times for 87 yards and two scores, but he fumbled on Louisville's first two drives in the second half, including one on the 5-yard line with the Cardinals seemingly about to score.

Louisville running back Victor Anderson did his best to rally the Cardinals, scoring on a 2-yard touchdown run -- thanks to a fourth-down option pitch from Froman -- to make it 31-19. Louisville then missed on a two-point conversion attempt that would have drawn it with 10.

UConn was up 14-13 at halftime, the beneficiaries of a missed extra point by Louisville's Ryan Payne, but could have been much farther ahead. Teggart missed a 27-yard field goal and Endres was intercepted on the penultimate play of the first half with UConn on the edge of Teggart's range.

Endres finished 14-of-21 for 273 yards with one interception and one touchdown. The sophomore quarterback is one of five current starters on the UConn offense that began the season as a backup.

"That's football and that's life," Edsall said. "It's about going out and proving yourself each and every day. Those guys have done that. It doesn't matter where you start, it's where you finish."